AIS former leader at “Echorouk” Forum: “We suggest efficient social policy to settle Algeria crisis”

An efficient social policy is likely to convince the remaining terrorists and make them surrender to security sevices, according to Madani Mezrag, the former leader of the dissolved “Islamic Salvation Army” –AIS-.

• “This policy consists in adopting a well-studied process by involving all related actors,” said Mezrag.
• “I expect that this policy will have efficient results within the next year and six months,” he added.
• “There will remain only 10 percent of blood-thirsty terrorists and we will steadily fight them.”
• He renewed his attachment to the choice of the National Reconciliation as a solution for Algeria’s security crisis.
• Madani Mezrag said the so-called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb “are actually two faces of the Islamic Armed terrorist Group (GIA).”
• Speaking about Aymen Ezaouahiri, he said he wished he heard him giving an advice to Algerian people to maintain safety in their country.
• “After we managed with the system to solve the crisis, some factions are moving to destabilise Algeria and open door for foreign intervention,” he said.
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• Madani Mezrag said he does not believe in the fact that armed acts represent a correct way to achieve political objectives. “Now, we have a new vision and a clear conception of the State, the system and power.”
• “The Algerian system is described as republican but in fact it is not. It is a system of factions and blocks. We are working on making it a real republican system,” he added.
• “As for power, we support it if it does well, we criticises it if it is wrong and we stand against it if it continues on the wrong way.”
• Mezrag said he knew Algerian Army Generals Smail Ammari and Fodil Cherif who “led negotiations with us and I am always in touch with security officials in the country.”
• “Security forces are always present to receive us and listen to our preoccupations,” he added.
•   “We have settled some of our problems with the help and not through the administration.”
• He denied having held talks with the Algerian army commander since 1994 to get money. “We held talks and we did what we did because we love Algeria,” he said.
• Madani Mezrag said the Algerian authorities did not respect the provisions of their agreement with his party signed in the late 1990’s.
• “The agreement stipulates a set of social aspects for the elements of this armed organisation including employment.”
• He added that the agreement allows the AIS’ members to get the jobs they lost and continue studying at university for students.
• He said he made a deal with security forces to give facilities to the AIS’ elements to benefit from small projects via youth employment agencies but “it did not work as it was expected to be.”
• He believed that this “difficult situation is due to the incomplete work of the State of which the Algerian people are still suffering.”
• “The administration has been behind the failure of all the government’s projects since the independence of Algeria,” he said.
• Madani Mezrag called on the government to respect the law of the Civil Concord which was approved via a popular referendum in 1999.
• He said the law says the armed groups’ elements have the right to exercise their political rights.
• “How it comes that the GIA criminals who massacred Algerians take advantage from this law while the AIS’ elements can not exercise their civil and political rights?”
• “Those difficulties will not stop as from continuing our struggle to defend our rights as stipulated by the law,” he added.
• He said the agreement he signed with security forces in the late 1990’s is still valid with the State institutions.
• “If our struggle did not come up with positive results with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, it will do one day with the person who succeeds him.”
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